The Importance of Planning

What are your plans for May 25th, 1995? How about August 19th, 1994? Okay, what about April 13th, 1994? If your answer to any of these questions was/is, "I don't know!", than get out the daily planner and take a few notes.

No matter what business you are in, you have to have goals. Goals are your tick marks toward success. Without them you have no standards by which to measure success. Many entrepreneur's fail in the area of planning and goal setting. Take a moment and block out an hour or two on your planner to be used for planning time.

There are 3 types of plans/goals that should be annotated in your daily planner:

1. SHORT RANGE PLANS - These are your daily and weekly things to do. Here is where you plan you telephone contacts, set appointments, schedule admin time, and even plan your on-line time. You should check and evaluate today's activities at close of business daily. At the same time you should fill in the next days activities. This will increase productivity and time management.
2. MID RANGE PLANS - These are your 1-3 month plans/goals. This is where you put your training plans, set your quarterly numbers goals, set your times for historical review, and even schedule that all important vacation time. This plan should be reveiwed and updated at the end ov every month. This plan is flexible and should be fine tuned in conjunction with your Short Range Plans.
3. LONG RANGE PLANS - 12 months, a full year out. The toughest of plans, yet the most important. If what your doing is a serious business than you should have 12 month goals. These include monetary goals, business growth goals, market penetration goals. These should be updated monthly and are the bare bones plans of your business. Again these are very flexible, but, when you read them month after month they become important and you will adjust your Mid Range and Short Range plans accordingly.

Without them you future looks like...............

Well, I think you get the point.

With practice, and stick-too-itiveness, you will be operating smarter, not harder in every aspect of your business. You will be a time management machine. You will be able to train others to become more time efficient, thus increasing income and success.

Keep plugging, you will be successful!!!!!!!!